It snowed last night. This should come as no surprise; winter is not yet ended according to the calendar. Spring snow is the rule in Calgary, not the exception. This latest tumble from the heavens is not unusual, barely noteworthy, except that it is a different kind of snow, different from what has been happening since October.
The snow that fell last night is a heavy, wet snow, loading down the branches and weighing down the trees. It is the kind of snow one would expect to see along the coast of BC, where it falls deep and wet, soaking the ground and all those it touches. It is the snow of warm air, not the brittle, light, hard, dry snow that we get here for most of our winters. It is the snow that speaks of spring and run-off, something many Calgarians are watching nervously this year after the floods of last.
I awoke in the night and seeing the snow wondered what the temperature was outside. I checked and it was barely below freezing. Already today the sun has warmed the air to the point where the tree outside my window is dripping, that very heavy water that soaks into everything and chills to the bone. This snow will leave us quickly; tomorrow the birds will be the masters of my tree once again.
It is good to see the cold steel fingers of winter chill being pried open to let the warmth of spring enter in. In this case, the loss of icy grip is a good thing, a time when life returns to us, a time when the very ground upon which we trod speaks of hope and glory, when the flowers leap and the songbirds return. While I may be in the winter of my life, spring abounds around me, its clarion call telling all that life will continue, that there will be another planting, another growing, another harvest.
My winter will continue. The icy steel grip of my disease will squeeze ever tighter, crushing my body with its relentlessness. Yet even in this state I can find joy in the seasons, in the changes, in the continuing pageant that is life around me. Even with my own season ending, other seasons will go on. This is life; this is my life.
Even though the icy grip of this disease is still squeezing, you manage to have spring in your writings, which spreads spring to other ALS sufferers , and to others as well. . I read every blog, not just for ALS knowledge,of which I have little, but also the way you deal with life in general intrigues me.
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